“Poor Man’s Paradise,” one of the highlights of the subdudes’ latest, is the second New Orleans song of that title to come along in recent months; the first was the title track of Johnny Sansone’s current album. Both songs are about life post-Katrina, but they’re a study in contrasts. Sansone’s is angry and wry, the singer still loving his home but not finding much cause for optimism. The subdudes’ tune dares to suggest that things just might be alright. A song like this can be a tougher one to write, but the band makes it work by celebrating what’s still around—even if that’s only a transistor radio playing Fats Domino. The group’s trademark harmonies put across the low-key, life-affirming feel, and the song winds up sounding just as timely—and as necessary—as Sansone’s harsher one.

That’s not to say that the band doesn’t show some teeth on this often-topical album, its first since the hurricane. “Thorn in Her Side’ is one of their few specific protest songs; and a strong one: The lyrics touch on everything from immigration to the Iraq war, before going for the knockout punch with the line, “How about taking care of our own / like the people down south drownin’ in their homes?” Tommy Malone’s closing slide solo has a clenched-teeth quality that sounds just right. “Brother Man” and “I’m Your Town” address condition s in New Orleans, but it’s easy to suppose that “Stranger” and “Fair Weather Friend”—both ostensibly about personal relationships—are thinly veiled protest songs as well. Certainly, the line “Why do you treat me like a stranger / like somebody that you never knew?” has wider implications nowadays.

The topical context gives the subdudes’ music a bite that it has sometimes lacked in the past; “Fountain of Youth” is the kind of swampy rocker that the early albums could have used. It wouldn’t be a subdudes album without a couple accordion-led tunes or a Malone soul ballad, but producer George Massenburg (Linda Ronstadt/Little Feat) brings out less familiar sides of the band, from the gospel-styled “Brother Man” to a near-Fleetwood Mac groove on “Fairweather Friend.” Add in that they’ve been unusually prolific since their reshuffled reunion with three discs in just over three years, and the subdudes’ second act is looking more satisfying than the first.